On a Mission...

Things are really beginning to reve up.  I feel like snowball, rolling downhill.  I sign the lease on our new training space tomorrow and Uzazi Village will have an address!   Later this week, I leave for Orlando Florida, to attend the International Lactation Consultant Association conference, and to sit for the Lactation Consultant exam.  I also have finals this week and need to finish up my clinical assignments before I leave for Florida.  Next week, we move into our beautiful urban training space (exposed brick walls, high beam ceilings, and finished wood floors) and start training our Sister Doula candidates, and holding our Chocolate Milk Cafe (breastfeeding support group).  I am on an absolute high, seeing things come together, that I have long only dreamed of.  This weekend was the annual retreat for the Missouri Midwives Association, and I spent a blissful weekend with my sister midwives (mostly CPMs, the CNMs have their own group, sadly).  (Even though I'm training to be a CNM, I believe the CPM model is a better one for my community.)  I loved spending time with my sister midwives and was able to share my intention to fill their ranks with midwives of color.  Two other local midwives are starting a birth attendant class, and my peridoula course will serve as a nice pre-requisite.  With the local midwives taking on apprentices our little corner of the map is soon to become a hotbed of midwifery resurgence.  This is my personal mission- to restore midwifery to my community.